British Atlantic Committee: Grant

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To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is making a financial grant to the British Atlantic Committee, a political organisation campaigning against nuclear disarmament by Britain endorsed by the conferences of the Labour and Liberal parties, and, if so, what is the amount of the grant.

My Lords, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office makes a grant to the British Atlantic Committee to support it in pursuing its aim "to promote knowledge and understanding of the North Atlantic Alliance and the central role that the Alliance plays in ensuring the security and the democratic freedom of the United Kingdom". British membership of NATO enjoys the support of all major parties in Parliament and, indeed, of the over-whelming majority of people in this country. The grant to the British Atlantic Committee totalled £30,000 in 1981–82.

My Lords, is this not a very dangerous constitutional practice? Is the Minister aware that this organisation stands in a partisan way, propagating views much wider than he has indicated? Is he aware
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that it propagates opposition to decisions reached by both the Labour and Liberal annual conferences? Is it not politically wrong for a Government to make a grant to an organisation which is sympathetic to their policies but opposed to the policies of opposition parties in this country?

My Lords, I am not responsible for decisions taken at Labour Party or Liberal Party conferences, but in fact the British Atlantic Committee covers a very wide spectrum of British political opinion, including members of the party sitting opposite.

My Lords, in regard to that bracketing of the Labour and Liberal conferences, is the Minister aware that, pending multilateral disarmament, the Liberal conference supports NATO's established nuclear deterrent and is therefore not unilateralist, and is associated with the British Atlantic Committee's position and not with that of the Labour Party? Is the noble Lord further aware that the Liberal Assembly takes its decisions by democratic methods, and not——

My Lords, I am not sure it is for me to intervene in the discussions which go on, and exchange of views which takes place, between the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. So far as I am able to detect them, Liberal Party policies in this matter seem acceptable.

Lord Paget of Northampton

My Lords, is the Minister aware that I was for many years a secretary of a similar organisation, the United Kingdom Council for United Europe? I was joint secretary with Julian Amery under the joint chairmanship of Lord Robens and Mr. Harold Macmillan. That was an association which was plainly non-party but equally plainly political. We raised money from many sources but we never dreamt of raising money from the Government. On the other hand—

Of course, my Lords, the question of financial support is a wider philosophical one, but it is perhaps worth mentioning that I think the opposition party itself now enjoys some support from central Government.

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the director of this " pro-bomb " organisation, Mr. Alan Lee Williams, is a defector from the Labour Party to the Social Democratic Party? Is he further aware that Mr. Alan Lee Williams has admitted that this organisation receives a direct grant from NATO, as well, and that one of its main purposes is to campaign against the CND; therefore, ought it not to be entitled the Campaign for Nuclear Armament?

My Lords, is the Minister aware that I welcome the fact that this organisation advocates multilateral disarmament? But if that is one of its purposes, ought it not to be campaigning at the second assembly of the United Nations next year against the Government, who at the Geneva Committee are obstructing proposals for multilateral disarmament?

My Lords, there is nothing in the constitution of this body which would preclude it from campaigning against the Government, as the noble Lord puts it, if thought fit to do so; but of course it prefers to act on the merits of the matter.